Only “We” Can Use Children In Our Political Messaging

Yeah I agree with the President, it’s “repugnant and cowardly” to use children in political messages.

Sarcasm aside, as far as I can tell from reading between the lines, both sides of the debate are in favor of more police in schools. This is something the Democrats used to love (even Senator Chuck Schumer), so there doesn’t seem to be anyone to oppose it. I thought it was hypocritical of David Gregory to trash the idea since his own kids are guarded by armed security. Perhaps now he’ll be in favor of it via President Obama’s executive order.

I’d love to see any data on violent crime incidents in schools with and without police being present. I think that’s far more important than listening to the Democrats and Republicans bitch at each other.

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44 thoughts on “Only “We” Can Use Children In Our Political Messaging”

You do realize that data can be used to prove almost anything. At some point, you have reason without data, by hypothesizing or by looking at parallels in other societies . Not arguing that we shouldn’t be looking at data, but just highlighting an important concern.

The solution can’t just be to use intuition, when it is so clear that our intuition can and is manipulated by the political parties. Data can be manipulated, but it is far better than what we have now.

What do we have now? Chaos? People threatening to disregard an executive order! People threatening to do God knows what because their 2nd amendment right is the death kneel of society if it’s taken away?! I mean, why should anyone’s right to own a high powered weapon trump my right to live without fear of some idiot taking pot shots at my family because he’s or she is pissed about something?

Seriously Michael. Maybe intuition isn’t it, and maybe data isn’t it. Maybe, just maybe common sense and compromise is what is needed!

Hey, what’s wrong with simply ranting and yelling? Isn’t that how you make your living? :) As to your question of if I’m in favor of cops in schools, personally, I’m not a fan of that idea. I just don’t want to think that we as a society need to go there. Maybe we do, I am really just hoping that isn’t the case.

I’m not fan or an advocate of making all guns illegal. I see no harm in some of the proposals being bandied about; universal background checks as one example.

It seems gun advocates argument is always something along the lines of, “if someone wants a gun, they’ll get a gun”. Why is it never if we want to fix this problem we can fix it?

Personally, I just don’t think the solution is one extreme or the other. I think when the topic of guns, 2nd amendment rights and pragmatic solutions are discussed, normal and rational people lose their minds and focus on digging in instead of talking candidly and openly. I’m certainly no different as noted by the emotional response previously.

I don’t think anyone needs a military style weapon. Is it the right solution to move in that direction to ban them? I don’t know but, personally I fail to see why anyone needs one in society today.

I think that there are alternatives that need to be explored. Not being American I don’t fully understand the issues but what if there was more focus on control than prohibition. What if the law permitted whatever weapons but limited their use and storage to locations designated for that specific application.

If I hit my hand with a hammer, I don’t need data to tell me that it will hurt. America’s gun problem is just as obvious. However, the issue of schools is not so clear. Columbine and Virginia Tech both had armed guards, so do we now talk about more guns and more guards, or do we look into other options, like better doors that would make each room a ‘safe room’? Seems like there might be more sensible options besides more guns.

For data to have a sense, it has to be statistically significant. “violent crime incidents in schools” is (thankfully) not in that category. There are 30 violent deaths in school per year. Not enough to extract any meaning…

Depressing that so few are aware enough of their own biases that they can’t see when they are being hypocritical. It’s what made the election so painful, being constantly bombarded by opinions that were dictated by allegiance to tribe rather than logical reasoning.

I would worry more if our country hadn’t gone through similar or worse problems before. Also, we are aided by the worse incompetence of the rest of the world. We seem to better at getting it right, even if we screw around a lot in the process. Personal liberty and all that.

Get used to it. That’s the kind of world the NRA is promoting and Americans are choosing to accept. Arm everybody, and then everybody will be safe. Nope, nothing could go wrong with that kind of thinking.

Actually the NRA isn’t promoting what is already our right. They are simply defending our right. The NRA is a PAC that is supported by a large number of people that believe the second amendment protects our right to bear arms. Why is this concept so hard for gun control advocates to understand? Also, I am hopeful schools are provided federal dollars to install security guards in schools since the data that you desperately need will show a ZERO kill rate on our children (when the school employs security). Thank you also Michael for pointing out how our own president is a hypocrite. Just like every other gun control member of our esteemed congress.

No, the NRA are doing a lot more than defending your 2nd ammendment right. They are resisting all and any regulations which would have nothing to do with banning guns but would save lives. The NRA is fighting to make it easy for criminals to get guns because then more people will want guns for protection. The NRA is ensuring a supply of guns to both sides, an age-old business strategy of arms suppliers.

The question is not whether data would show that police presence results in less crime or not. Even if it does, the question is : do we ultimately want to live in a world where people don’t shoot each other because they don’t own guns or in one where people don’t shoot each other because the ones in front of them also own guns.

@Seb – Yes, that is the question. For the most part, the rest of the well-educated world has chosen the former. America is choosing the latter. Just another reason why the American middle class is on a path to ruin.

What you want is a world where everyone can kill everyone else, but they don’t want to.

This is the crux of the matter! People are killed with poisons, knives and cars, bombs and guns and chairs and so on. Anyone wanting another person dead that strongly will use their bare hands and a rock… So that’s a poor way to go.

Far better the ‘mythical’ armed, polite society – full of intelligent nice people, whether armed or not, who are capable and happy. Most don’t need to be armed – they just have to be invested in the society enough that they are prepared to get involved – they can be armed with a camera, a phone or a gun.

I grew up in a school with 2 Police officers on site. Lots of pot smoking and fights, nothing too major except for a couple stabbings, but honestly I think the Police presence kept the amount of violence to a minimum. Come kids were so bad a teacher was arrested when a pistol was spotted in her purse that she brought with her to school for protection.

The cops didn’t interfere with my education, certainly didn’t prevent all criminal incidents, but made me feel safe in a place that wasn’t always the safest.

On “we” can use children… if I get this right, you are hinting it’s equivalent to drag kids into negative public battles without their or their guardian’s consent, as opposed to feature kids in a positive light with their or their guardian’s consents. Did I get this right? Both are as “repugnant and cowardly”? Glad we got this clarified…

And Schumer wasn’t for cops in school so as to defend against an armed attacker, he was for cops to interact with kids before they become gang members. It’s called community policing. The idea is that by having a relationship between the police and the community, you won’t need guns later…

I read somewhere that requiring everyone who owned a gun to be fully insured in the event it is misused in anyway might let the market provide a solution? If there was an insurance company that had to pay compensation to the bereaved families, the authorities for the cost of emergency response, medical costs of the survivors and the school to put the physical fabric back together then someone might have looked more closely at the son’s mental problems before issuing the mother all those weapons.

As a teacher myself, it wouldn’t hurt for administrators to have biometric pop-open safes at their desks. I doubt any kid wants to get shot by an assistant principal – at least that kid in Pearl Mississippi definitely didn’t.

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